The Pagosa Land Company’s biomass power plant focuses on treating lower-elevation forests of ponderosa pine and warm-dry mixed-conifer./Photo by Steve  Eginoire

Into the fire

Biomass power plants turn fire mitigation into renewable energy

by Tracy Chamberlin

The latest victim of the state’s beetle-infestation could sit in the San Juan National Forest until the next wildfire blazes across the southwest. Or, that ponderosa pine could become the fuel for something else altogether.

With beetle-killed trees littering the states public lands and wildfire a constant threat, Colorado companies are finding ways to turn fuel for the fire into fuel for local power grids.

After touring one of those companies in Gypsum this month, Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., lauded endeavors like it and a similar project under way in Pagosa Springs as examples of how to create jobs, generate renewable energy, reduce wildfire risks and promote healthy forests.

“With modern mega-fires becoming a growing problem that threatens Colorado communities, our precious water supplies and our way of life in the West, we need to use every tool we have to reduce wildfire risks,” Udall said in a statement.

He also used the tour to tout the public-private partnerships behind these projects as an example of the benefits of the U.S. Forest Service’s Stewardship Contracting Authority.

The same authority under which J.R. Ford, owner of the Pagosa Land Company, earned a 10-year contract to develop a woody biomass plant near Pagosa Springs that turns what could be fuel for another wildland fire into energy that instead helps to power Archuleta County.

The contract, worth about $4.5 million over the 10-year term, limits the operation to a 50-mile perimeter from the plant. This border is intended to keep the equipment off wilderness lands and focused instead on the borderlands between the backcountry and suburbia, where about 40 percent of Colorado’s residents reside.

Covering these areas, called the wildland-urban interface,  is what people have always loved about the project, Ford said. “We’re trimming in their back yards.”

Biomass power plants like Ford’s and the one in Gypsum are considered sources of renewable energy by the state, and seen by many as a way to reduce the growing amount of beetle-killed trees.

The Pagosa power plant will take dead trees, slash and limbs from the area, cut them into about 1.5-inch wood chips and gasify the material. It’s then used to power  a combustion engine, creating 5 megawatts that gets pumped into the local grid. According to Ford, the technology does not violate the state’s air quality standards, nor does the process use vast amounts of water. What it will create are 12 new jobs for the local community.

Ford’s endeavor has support across the region and the political spectrum. From government agencies like the Forest Service and environmental groups like The Upper San Juan Mixed-Conifer Working Group to everyone in between, the project is often portrayed as a win-win.

Recently, communities in New Mexico and across the Southwest have called Ford to ask how his company was able to find such diverse support for the project. His number one answer is by starting from scratch.

The Pagosa biomass plant is a small project, born from the need to address the specific problem of dealing with the massive amounts of beetle-kill and other dead trees surrounding the area. Instead of being industry-driven, it was driven by the needs of the community.

Environmental and government groups also tout the project’s small size as a benefit, noting the reach for hauling materials at only 50 miles from the plant.

The process began about seven years ago with a feasibility study, but the major announcement came in June 2012 when Ford was awarded the long-term stewardship contract. Currently, the final designs are being worked out for the facility and an announcement on the building partners is expected in mid-October. Ford’s goal is to open at the end of 2014.

And once he does open, he’s not likely to run out of material. With up to 70,000 acres available and the plant only treating about 1,500 acres a year, Ford said it could be working within the 50-mile perimeter for the next 40 years. Then, the process would essentially start all over again.

“I don’t ever see our supply running out,” he added.